“What do you think about moving the furniture down to that crib you rented,” he asked. “Maybe operating out of there for the rest of this thing.”
“It sounds like hard work for no good reason.”
“There’s too much traffic here,” he said. “Be good to get someplace a little quieter. We’re concentrating on Gaines now.”
I thought about the afternoon when my track coach had told me he wanted me to learn the hurdles. He’d set them up on the football field, where there was grass and I could fall without scraping quite so much skin off. I argued with him, trying to convince him that I was a sprinter, but he’d said I wasn’t fast enough. I had to either move to the mile or learn how to clear the hurdles. We had faced off under the sweltering April sun and he said, “You’re going places. You’ve got what it takes. Listen to me. I’m giving you good advice.” It thrilled me that he had singled me out, decided to put extra effort into my training. I worked for him. I sweated and ached to make myself worthy of his attention.
The spoken word, the commitment to go after Gaines, made me feel the way I had at the track meets, when I stood at the line marking the start of the mile relay hand-off zone, my body so charged with adrenaline that I had trouble getting the third-leg runner in focus as she hurtled down the stretch toward me, and then she’d hit the line that was my signal to take off, and my vision would go so suddenly clear that I could see the mole on her earlobe in that instant before I turned my head to run, and then I was listening to her footsteps catch me, waiting for her command, “Stick!” and I would reach back, palm up, waiting, and the hard metal baton would slap into my hand, and then I had it and was running, pacing for the first two-twenty, and then the coach was there at the pole, calling out times, and the third hundred and ten was just gutting it out, hurting, the air razor-laden, slicing my lungs, and then, then, the last hundred and ten, for the final stretch, I was right where I wanted to be, two steps out of first place, and it was no longer a physical matter, it was a question of will, and then I was sprinting past the lead runner, kicking hard, forcing my legs to have strength, and there were the shouts from the stands, and the finish tape was glorious when I broke it with a downward slash of arms.
Gaines was major. He was a trophy worth having.
The phone rang and almost before I could say hello Dodd was yammering away as if he had news that Armageddon was scheduled for next Tuesday.
“The shit was all over the place,” he shouted. “Reels of it! We’ll put him away for forty years!”
“Where was it?” I asked.
“Out near the creek behind his house. Goddamn jury’ll take a look at this stuff and want to hang the bastard on the courthouse steps!”
“Where’d you get your info?”
“C.I.” Dodd said.
“You run a paper?”
There was silence.
“We just went and took it,” he said quietly. “Hell, we didn’t have time to check property lines and all. It was a good forty yards from his back door. Ain’t no fencing.”
“You had a confidential informant tell you there was porn on Gaines’s property and you didn’t get a search warrant?”
“Fuck no, man, like I said, the shit was outside, reals of it, just dumped near the edge of the creek.”
“No paper?”
“No,” he said flatly. “But you should see this stuff!” He was yelling, excited again. “If it was capital he’d fry for sure. A warrant would have taken hours.”
“Did he see you out there?”
“Hell no. Nobody was home.”
“So you’re going to pop him?”
“I don’t know. Got to check with the Chief. He’s talking now about a hundred defendants, wants some numbers for sure.”
“For God’s sake, Dodd, we’ve got over eighty now. We’re not even making dealers anymore, we’re down to potheads. What’s the point here?”
“I’ll talk to him.”
“Yeah, well, tell him you’ve got one agent who’s three-quarters wasted and another who’s not too far behind. Like it’ll make a difference.”
“What do you mean?”
“I spent the better part of the week watching my partner puke his guts out into a trash can by the bed, he couldn’t even make it to the bathroom!”
Jim took the receiver from me.
“Sergeant,” he said, “we’ve had a rough time here. But things are cool, I mean we could use a little help or something, but we’ll handle it.” He lectured Dodd about search warrants for a few minutes and then hung up.
“Damn, lady.” He smiled at me for the first time in weeks. “You’re liable to get us both on the carpet for insubordination.”
“You think he even knows what that is?”
“Yeah,” he said, slumping into a chair. “Out idiot sergeant. I feel like I been rode hard and put up wet.” He tapped out a line and picked up the tooter. “A man ought to be able to get off this way once his tolerance is down.”
I took the tooter from him.
“Hey,” he said, reaching for it, “have a little faith.” He took it and leaned over the mirror.
“The way you do?” But I was relieved when he did it. I hadn’t like the way he looked at me when I bumped up while he was eating.
“Dodd told me he’d call back,” he said, absently fingering the vial. “To let us know if they’re going to pop him.”
“If that creek is on Gaines’s property, there’s no way. Besides, you can’t seriously think El Jefe will go for charging a big target with a misdemeanor.”
When Dodd did finally call, it was to relay addresses and appointment times. Nettle was sending us to some doctors. A precautionary measure, Dodd said. Just to make sure we were all right. It was almost touching, except that I knew El Jefe didn’t give a damn about Jim or about me, didn’t spend so much as a minute worrying about our welfare. If he’d told Dodd it was a precaution, it certainly was not for our sake.
* * *
We sat in the barren waiting room at the county health center watching the junkies and poor, pregnant Black women traipse in and out until finally a nurse called for us.
Doctor number one must have been pushing ninety, with a beard down to his belt buckle and frizzy gray hair almost to his shoulders. He sat hunched at his desk; when he stood up, the bend of his shoulders stayed the same. I thought of Rumpelstiltskin.
He didn’t so much as take our temperatures. When Jim told him we couldn’t sleep, he wrote out prescriptions for Valium and Quaalude, no questions asked.
Back in the car, Jim looked at the scripts and shook his head. He put on his best West Texas drawl and said, “Well, shit, darlin’, El Jefe’s taking care of us. Don’t this beat all. A miracle of modern medicine.”
From there we went to the psychologist’s office for a three-thirty appointment. The nurse led us to a small room that was entirely carpeted: the floor, walls, ceiling, even the benches along the walls, in a mealy, gray-colored plush pile. Pillows the shade of cream were tossed along the benches, and dozens of framed certificate hung on the wall.
“This place smells of incompetence,” I said.
“Be nice,” Jim said. “Maybe we’ll score again.”
“Wrong credentials,” I said. “The paper says psychologist. Check the diploma. He can’t write scripts.”
We were still standing in the middle of the room when the doc walked in, tall and lumpy, wearing beige double-knit slacks with a navy blue sport shirt and gray suede slip-ons. At first glance he appeared to have a reasonably full head of black hair, but when I looked closely I saw that it wasn’t much more than a single black strand that was snaked around his pate and plastered in place with some kind of industrial-strength hairspray. “Good afternoon,” he said in a syrupy voice. “I’m Doctor Mawes. Jack, if you like. I just want to tell you that Chief Nettle is a personal friend of mine, and I’ve spoken to him at length. Rest assured that everything you say will be strictly confidential.”
I took that
as a sure sign that he would head for a telephone as soon as we left. He was practically quivering with excitement, thrilled to be in on a secret.
“Doctor,” Jim said, “I’m not sure why we’re here except that the boss said we had an appointment. I guess if you’ve talked to him you know we’re under a lot of stress and all, and that I was overdosed a few months ago.”
Dr. Jack sat directly across from us, pressing a pillow between his hands. He looked like he might drool.
“Let me tell you about my track record,” he said. “I’ve had wonderful success in the past. To date, I’m proud to say, I’ve saved thirty-three marriages and redeemed almost forty-seven alcoholics. I haven’t lost a drug case yet. The treatment I have in mind would do you two a world of good.”
“How long does it take?” Jim asked.
“That’s the beauty of it,” said Dr. Jack. “It only takes a weekend. And you’re in luck. We have our Christian Fellowship Retreat scheduled for this very Friday.”
I looked at Jim and he looked at me and we both looked back at the doctor. For some reason I was tempted to break out a line.
“The cost,” he continued, “is only three hundred and seventy-five dollars, and that included round-trip bus fare to Lake Livingston, a semi-private cabin, and all of our fellowship activities. But you needn’t worry about that. The Chief said he would pick up the freight, pardon my expression, on this one.”
“Doctor,” I said, imitating the sweet notes of concern that dripped from his voice, “That’s quite an impressive record. You say you’ve helped people get off drugs? What’s your secret?”
“The power of faith, young lady.” He pressed the pillow to his lap and beamed at us. “It’s astonishing,” he said. “The simple power of faith.”
“Doc,” Jim said, “we really aren’t in a position to take time off right now. Maybe you could give us the info and we could get back to you.”
The merest shadow of a frown fluttered past on Dr. Jack’s smiling, complacent visage, but only for an instant. Then the mask of profound and supreme inner peace draped his face again, as though he were trying to imitate Gandhi.
“Why of course, why, certainly,” he said. “Just ask the nurse.”
She gave us three pamphlets and folded her hands primly over her heart, her mouth stretched into an ear-to-ear grin as she watched us out the door.
Jim drove aimlessly, not headed anywhere in particular, not saying much as he drove. I plugged Steely Dan into the tape player and dug in the ashtray for a doobie before I picked up the pamphlets.
“ ‘What Every Christian Needs to Know,’ ” I read. Jim rolled his eyes. “‘Understanding Your Id and Reconciling it to Christ.’ Ah, here we are. ‘Dr. Jack Mawes invites you to Spend a Weekend Getting in Touch with Jesus. A fun-filled three-day retreat in the beauty and splendor of Lake Livingston for couples who want to strengthen their interpersonal relationships through Christ.’”
“Christian Fellowship Retreat,” Jim said. “I bet those are real swinging deals.” He passed the joint. “I can’t figure this guy Nettle.”
“It’s probably a damn adultery club,” I said.
Jim threw a glance at me.
“He hit on you or something?”
“Come on,” I said. “Give me a break.” I wanted to tell him. It would be sweet, watching him do a number on Nettle. I took a long slow hit. “Did you know,” I said, “that this band is named after a famous dildo?”
“Steely Dan? I’ll bet you Gaines has more than a few of those in stock.”
“So we’re back to that.”
“Hell yes, we’re back to that. I mean, Christ, Nettle aside, what are you supposed to do if a dude’s taking women and letting them drink free in his clubs, feeding them Preludin until they plenty fuckable and ripe for the camera?”
“Where’s this coming from?”
“Hey,” he said, “right’s right, wrong’s wrong. Dude’s flat-out wrong.”
“Then there ought to be some way to take him down.”
“No proof, man, he’s done slid on those deals. But I’ll say this. If the dude ain’t wrong, I’ll kiss your ass at noon in front of the post office and give you an hour to draw a crowd.”
14
We lay on the carpet in the empty living room of my apartment, staring up at the whiteness of the ceiling. The drapes were open and the calm of late afternoon whispered in through the screens, warm and sleepy. Now and then a breeze billowed the drapes, flaring them gently from the edge of the window, and slid along the floor to tickle at the bottoms of my bare feet.
Jim took my hand and ran his fingers lightly across my palm, barely touching it, and then over my wrist and up my bare arm.
“Feel good?” he whispered.
“Very. It’s been awhile, you know.”
“Do I ever. Turn over.”
I rolled onto my stomach and he straddled my back and began kneading my shoulders.
“The bra, please,” I said.
He reached under my shirt and slipped the hooks loose, began working his way down my back. By the time he reached my feet I was barely conscious.
“Don’t drift off,” he said. “This is strictly a split-down deal.” He knelt up and unbuttoned his shirt and balled it into a pillow. “My turn.” He stretched out next to me.
“I’m Jell-O,” I said. “Haven’t got the strength to blink.” I pushed myself up and rolled across him, brushing his hair away from his shoulders.
“Higher,” he said. “Start at the neck.”
I was working on his left hamstring when I looked up and saw him staring at his arm, rubbing the knotty mass under his reddened skin.
“I think I’ve done it,” he said quietly.
I leaned across him and pressed the track. It felt like there was a tube-shaped piece of cartilage lodged under his skin. The bruises were mostly gone, there was only the faintest yellow tint at the very edges of the track.
“Too much scar tissue,” he said. “Got one here that’s permanent.”
“Give it time,” I said. I went back to massaging his legs.
“That’ll take a year at least. And we’ll be in court way before then.”
“So we tell them we injected sterile water until a track formed. Part of your cover.”
He lay there, pressing a finger against his skin.
“Maybe I should just go back to the screwball shrink and ask him if he does prayer healing.”
“What we should do is make Gaines and get the hell out of here.”
“To where?”
“Anywhere. Out in the country somewhere.”
“And do what?”
“Anything. We can raise guinea pigs as far as I’m concerned. Just something else.”
“I would have done that a long time ago if I could figure a way.”
“You’re not in it alone, you know.”
“That mean you’ve got an idea?”
“Maybe we should just wait it out until Nettle gives in, pulls us up.”
“Ain’t gonna happen. He’s got a hard-on for Gaines and we aren’t going anywhere until we give him a case. I don’t have a clue how I’ll manage to bail out of this one.” He rolled onto his back beneath me and pulled me down onto him. “What the hell,” he said. “It’ll keep.” He sighed quietly. “What do you say we hit a restaurant, maybe that Mexican place out near Vidor, take in a movie or something.”
“A little later,” I said, raising myself on my arms.
He reached up and began unbuttoning my blouse. I felt his lips against my earlobe when he whispered, “I didn’t know how much I’d missed you.”
When I woke up, early in the evening, I was alone. I dressed and walked back to his apartment, wondering where he’d gone, why he’d left me there like that, sleeping naked on the floor of my empty living room.
He wasn’t home, and there was no note. I tried Walker’s place.
“I haven’t seen him,” he said. “Don’t care to, either. I don’t mind if somebody tr
ies to kick my ass for good reason, but that wasn’t right, man, what he did.”
“He was fucked up,” I said. “He’s getting a lot of heat. He didn’t mean it.”
“Well, I probably shouldn’t even mention this, but I’ve got a Quaalude case set up for you. If you’re still interested in pills.”
“Where and when?”
“Dude sells them at the Yellow Rose, out in the parking lot, around closing time.”
“I’ll be back at eleven,” I said. I wondered where Jim was, but I wasn’t nervous about it. I was sure he was all right.
The parking lot was jammed with cars, their radios and tape decks blasting everything from Sammy Hagar to Merle Haggard into the warm night air. The last customers were wobbling out of the club, swaying in small groups under the broad awning that ran the length of the building.
“Over there,” Walker said, pointing to a dirty orange van parked on the south side of the acre-large parking lot. “We just tell him Monroe sent us.”
“Wait here,” I said. “No sense having you witness it.” He got out of the car and wandered toward the front of the club. I wound the Olds past parked cars and clots of people, pulling up next to the driver’s side of the van.
I didn’t have to say a word. The ’fro-headed driver looked down at me for a long moment, then leaned out the window and said, “How many?”
“They’re not that Canadian shit, are they?” I asked.
“Rorer,” he said. “Guaranteed. Five apiece.”
“What about two dozen?”
“I’ll let them go for a C.”
I handed him a bill and he tossed a baggie onto my lap. Then he leaned out and handed me a cold can of Dr. Pepper.
“Appreciate it,” I said. “If these are good I’ll want more.”
“I’m around,” he said.
I drove off slowly, noting his license plate number in my rearview. Anybody who was that easy deserved to get made.
I parked in a slot down the row from where Walker stood talking to a group of cowboys. Like all the clubs in Beaumont, the Yellow Rose was forced by city ordinance to close at midnight, leaving its patrons to gather in the parking lot until they got bored or a fight broke out and the cops came to chase everyone away.
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